tel: 512 280-1192 Thursday, August 11, 2016
Nursery notes: a free gift from Diane and Chris to all customers!
Drop by this weekend for your free tobacco plant, while supplies
last. (Tobacco helps with insect control in vegetable gardens.) Des-
ert rose sale: 4" pots $5.99 (reg. $7.99), 6" pots $12.99 (reg. 14.99).
Our pottery sale continues: 20% off, includes Talavera from Mex-
ico. / Bougainvilleas are still $14.99. Two gal. perennials still on
sale for $12.99: plumbago (blue), esperanza, prides of Barbados.
Please come by for a visit! 🌷
Build your own shed with 4 doors: This little shed is a great way
to protect your garden tools and recycle some old doors that would
otherwise become landfill. The perfect time in Austin to collect
doors is during 'bulk collection' week: owner-builder🌷
____________________________________________________
Best eggplant, best rose . . . best pot plant? Yes - the judges at
the Oregon State Fair later this month will have a new category of
plants to consider. The plants will be awarded ribbons based on
'color, structure, pruning, and spatial noding,' reports Quartz🌷
Apple 'birds nest' salad: Pascale Beale's recipe was inspired
by a desert - and uses at its center a baked Granny Smith apple
which is sliced horizontally and reassembled, and surrounded by
sprouts, cilantro, and bacon. From Edible Santa Fe 🌷
___________________________________________________ Central Texas Gardener: a visit with Ravenscourt Landscape
and Design; Leah Churner shares ideas on how to style apartment
balconies and patios; plant of the week is Salvia coccinea, which
attracts hummingbirds, bees and butterflies. Saturday: 4 p.m. abd
Sunday at 9 a.m. or on-line. KLRU. 🌷
Desert Rose: the Perfect Plant
by Chris Winslow
One of my favorite house or container plants is the desert rose.
This little succulent is part of the dogbane family of flowering
plants which includes oleander, mandevilla, vinca and plumeria.
The desert rose (Adenium obesum) is a native of Mauritania, Sene-
gal, Sudan, south through the Arab nations to South Africa, and it
simply thrives in our central Texas sunshine and heat. However,
like its friends plumeria and vinca, you have to protect them from
our cold winters.
So this deciduous, succulent shrub, that can handle our extreme
heat and sun with ease, is a perfect choice for our central Texas
weather.
I have had a rather large, old specimen at home for years. With
the warming weather of spring, I set her out on a deck with full
sun exposure. As the days get warmer, I water and feed the plant
more frequently. Missing a few days or even a week doesn’t hurt.
These plants have a swollen base known as a caudex. This is where
they store water for periods of drought.
During the summer months we are rewarded with pretty flowers.
They are tubular and star-shaped with five-petals, similar to the
lei-flowers of the plumeria.
As days become shorter and cooler in the fall, the desert rose will
begin to shed its leaves and become dormant. I then move my plant
indoors and place her near a sunny, south-facing window. There she
will stay throughout the winter months, without a drop of water.
With the return of warmer weather and the longer days of spring,
out she goes again for another season in the sun.
Older plants will sometimes reward you with a seed pod. Seeds
resemble small, hollow toothpicks and are easy to germinate.
These desert roses will grow 6 inches tall in the first year. They
will continue to grow 6 to 8 inches a year throughout their life. In
their native habitat, they can be as tall as 10 feet.
To see photographs of these plants, google ‘Isle of Socotra’ on
your -and check out some of the images. They’re easy to grow, with
a beautiful flower and plant form. What more could we ask for in
a plant? Happy gardening everyone!
Contact newsletter editor Darrel Mayers 🌷🌲 🌿 🌵 ☀️ 
🌻
🌻 with any ideas for articles or interesting links:
internationalrain@yahoo.com (hitting 'reply' to this email won't work)
Visit the website: It's About Thyme or facebook
internationalrain@yahoo.com (hitting 'reply' to this email won't work)
Visit the website: It's About Thyme or facebook
